I was watching the PCGS promo on youtube. Their criteria for grading included eye appeal. Look at these two coins. The 1959 quarter is PCGS graded MS64 and the 1922 Peace dollar is NGC graded MS64. I'm not questioning the grade, I'm questioning the eye appeal. The toning on the quarter makes the coin look like it was painted black and the black rubbed off. The Peace dollar has a huge rectangular stain starting in the bottom left covering the whole face. It looks like a tape stain, like it was taped in an album for the last 50 years. The dollar is a little hard to see on the pic, but it's really noticeable when you see it in person. The reverses of both are in very nice shape--no toning or tape marks. A couple things--the eye appeal on both these coins are the pits. Does ugly toning and tape marks take away from the grading? Why would someone even think about getting an ugly coin graded? Could the toning on the quarter have happened after it was graded?
First let me start by saying I 100% agree those coins are ugly as sin and wouldnt go in my collection. Second the coins could have looked a ton better when graded.... remember silver will tarnish and depending on what it has been exposed to can tarnish in a bad or not appealing way. I dont know why those coins would get that grade, I suppose the grader liked the way they look or perhaps they have ms66 details and got knocked back due to poor eye appeal. Either way you would want to get ugly coins graded because that coin in a picture looks like crap- but if you get the tag line of MS64 it makes people look at it anyways just to fill a gap in their collection. Plus a lot of investors dont know crap about coins and just buy the holder.
Oddly enough you haven't been indoctrinated yet into the unrealistic, nonsensical, irrisponsible world of UTUBE enough yet to know it is sort of like many other web sites for kids. If it's on web sites like My Space, Face Book, Utube, etc. then the possibilitis of realism is unrealistic. Just my opinion and the rest of my opinion is to just stick with this forum instead.
The video I saw on youtube was put out by PCGS. Their web site also says that appearance plays a part in their grading. The quarter was graded by PCGS. If that coin was toned like that before it was graded, I don't understand why anybody would want it graded in the first place. The dollar was graded by NGC, and they graded it MS64 even though it had a very unattractive and very noticeable tape stain on the obverse.
The pictues are not really usable to make a solid judgement but I don't really see anything wrong with th peace dollar, and the washington seems to show the typical mint set toning you would usually see on a pre-1959 coin. I don't care for it but toning like that is usually highly desired.
Here's another high-grade coin with, IMO, questionable eye appeal. Notice the nasty carbon spot next to the Y in Liberty. I do like the reverse toning a little better. http://coins.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=1122&Lot_No=8568
